Price competes with the iPad so $499 or less and date will be after the iPad but this year. I think they're waiting to see what the iPad does first and HP can try to replicate most of the key functions in a custom interface on top of Windows 7. They could even have the machine boot into a lesser OS first so it boots and runs very fast for ebooks, widgets etc. and then simply give the choice to run the full Windows 7 OS when a more fully fledged app is required.

Of course HP says they aren't competing with the iPad so it may be up to a 3rd party to do this. But, Android is going to be available and it essentially becomes a big Nexus One/Droid with 30,000 apps and no Windows license.

A full desktop os on a tablet has been around for years on both windows and mac (modbook). What i don't get is why those who whine about the ipad lack of a desktop os didn't buy one yet!

at least 6 reasons:

- they require a stylus
- they don't use capacitive input so they are inaccurate
- they don't respond to finger-based input/intuitive gestures
- no UIs were specifically designed for touch on them (note I said UI not OS)
- they are too heavy
- they cost too much money (Modbook Pro is $5,000)

- they require a stylus
- they don't use capacitive input so they are inaccurate
- they don't respond to finger-based input/intuitive gestures
- no UIs were specifically designed for touch on them (note I said UI not OS)

Which will bring you back to desktop OS are not suitable for such touch based devices. You can design the desktop OS to accept all of what you said (touch UI and no stylus) but how are you going to get developers to optimize their existing desktop software for touch? If you have to buy another touch based version of a software you already own then what's the point of having desktop OS?!

You really can't ask for UI designed for touch without asking for an OS designed for touch. You still need apps designed for touch UI. This is where the iPhone OS comes in play. The iPhone OS is basically Mac OS X designed for touch UI. MS is probably going the same way with the Windows Phone 7 software. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Windows Phone OS on slate PCs instead of Windows 7.

This is an entirely new category midway between a computer and a smart phone. It's not intended to replace your computer. In fact, the iPad is designed to sync with your computer via iTunes on either your Mac or Windows computer.

Apple's betting that they can successfully establish a new category that won't cannibalize sales of their computer or iPhone product line. They don't want it to have all those ports, DVD player, etc.

This is a replacement for stand-alone devices like eBook readers, portable DVD players, portable voice recorders, digital photo frames, etc. It will be better than any laptop in certain situations like watching a movie on an airplane in the coach seats or making a one-on-one sales presentation over lunch at a restaurant.

The Windoze crowd will pan it until Microsoft copies it and put's their name on it. Then they'll want one. That's the way it works with that crowd.

Not sure I agree with the non canniblizing. I have quite a few apple friends that are saying they are going to sell their mbp, get an iMac and ipad.
It's a logical move to some degree. The mbp line might take a hit which hopefully, will force apple to release more powerful mbps.

Those of us with first hand experience dealing with Apple products know the risk is very low. This fool preordered a WiFi + 3G. I'll try it out for a while before deciding whether to buy a second one. ;-)

The man has a point though. It is a pretty uninformed purchase. I will wait to play with one. If there was a camera and a couple of other things than maybe i would dive in but v2 sounds like a better bet right now. Still looks like a great product.

Yeah, well, I was thinking in terms of multifunctional device that can play media but also do emails, Internet... a few other things. Which both iPad and average netbook are capable of. Carrying dedicated DivX-enabled player plus another device for communications and images is a bit of an overkill.

There is another "issue" with iPad - carrying your music and movies (whichever format iPad does play) is a bit of a challenge with 16 or even 32GB storage on iPad... and 64GB is becoming pricey. Yes I know all the advantages of solid-state storage but at the end of the day, 160 (or 250)GB of storage is an advantage for video-watcher on the move.

I'm saying all this because I agree with you - I will very likely get one for my mother as soon as Skype application is available (or iPhone one confirmed working), but I still don't see a reason to get one for me. At present I'm much more inclined to replace my 15" notebook with something 12 - 13" for travels. I have big grunty desktop, iPhone, couple of consoles... with smaller, travel-friendly laptop, I just don't have real application for iPad at the moment, except for simple joy of having new gadget (which is not to be underestimated )

Divx/Xvid is largely around for Torrents (almost all of which are illegal). If you are making your own, every decent ripper will output to iPhone/Pad h264 formats. Whining about torrents is hardly something Apple should be playing up to. Most movie downloads are less than 1GB which means even the 16GB should manage about 10 while still holding an average song library (about a nano-full) and an bunch of books/apps. Any more than that and you are obviously hitting the rails with your favourite mutt, never to return ;-)

Most iPads will rarely if ever stray from their coffee table, nightstand etc. so will always be within easy reach of a sync for more content. Anyone who stores their entire library on the iPad is missing the point. "Watch it and delete" is the primary mode this will be used in for.

The primary market is not to replace anything... how many times does it have to be said. Your case, as you said is your own.

Not sure I agree with the non canniblizing. I have quite a few apple friends that are saying they are going to sell their mbp, get an iMac and ipad.
It's a logical move to some degree. The mbp line might take a hit which hopefully, will force apple to release more powerful mbps.

yah, right, and they claim to have had it done two years ago but didn't want to spend the $$$ "educate the consumer" at the time.

"If we had brought the slate out two years ago when we had it done, think about what the consumer reaction would have been,” he said."

On time my ass. This is a product they're rushing out so match the iPad and they wanted it prior to the iPad launch. They aren't "competing with the iPad" because they know it wont be able to now that it's shipping so much later than the iPad.

At tens of thousands, the critics say it is just rabid fanboys. At hundreds of thousands, same thing. How many millions does it take before people admit that Apple products have general, mass appeal? Consider the success of the iMac, iPod, iPhone; there simply aren't enough fanboy nut jobs to account for it. The vast majority of Apple customers are Windows users. Isn't it about time to stop dismissing the overwhelming number of people interested in purchasing this product as fanboys?

I hear the word "fanboy" and laugh. I have no problem with being called a "fanboy" and wear the badge proudly. Apple is an amazing company. And while Windows driven PC's gained a lowly 2.7% last year the Mac and all of it's useful and ahead of their time products gained 38%! So it would seem all of us "fanboys" which I would imagine would include some "fan-girls" are really just the majority of people who are just tired of lame, virus-ridden, glitchy software, Windows-driven and completely the least safe way to conduct our online lives and have finally just kind of got it. Macs are just the most beautiful, software safe, ZERO viruses EVER way to do what the Microsoft PC tries to do but falls flat on its face every time. I mean come on, it was inevitable that the Mac would make its comeback. People are finally just realizing the truck load of issues you get with Windows computers. You really have to be someone that doesn't understand computers and the choices that are out there. These days there is NO benefit to use a Windows computer. NONE!

People in the next 3-5 years will put Apple back on top just on the simplest of issues like the cost of yearly virus protection software and cheaply put together computers with dozens of parts that come from dozens of different companies and just don't last long. Apple? They minimize that problem with using the best of components from very few different companies, therefore limiting hardware failures you see so often with Microsoft computers.

Who wants to deal with all the garbage you have to deal with, with MS?! Macs are just the best made, most intuitive, beautiful, most safe way to do everything so safely on a computer you can get.

There is another "issue" with iPad - carrying your music and movies (whichever format iPad does play) is a bit of a challenge with 16 or even 32GB storage on iPad... and 64GB is becoming pricey. Yes I know all the advantages of solid-state storage but at the end of the day, 160 (or 250)GB of storage is an advantage for video-watcher on the move.

This may be a moot point very shortly. We have yet to see what the data center in NC is for, but there are rumors of Apple making content from your iTunes account available by streaming when you log in.

Anyway, I don't need to carry around my entire collection of 100 movies or whatever -- only the two or three I might want on a particular trip.

Re: DivX, and related movie files: you may miss out on some pirated movies from peer to peer sites or dubious streaming sites, but if you really want to archive your own DVDs, do yourself a favor and get a decent ripping program that uses a modern and efficient codec and file format that gives decent picture quality. Obviously, Apple is going to support its media partners and not bend over backwards for you to use a stash of (generally) pirated material. But there are certainly ways to bring your own DVDs into iTunes, with better results. I have a whole HD of nothing but movies attached to my Airport Extreme, simply so that the kids don't scratch up their DVDs. They select what they want for a trip, and these get sync'd to the iPod Touch.

For the life of me... I don't understand why people who want a full OS or whatever care. Why do you care? What's it to you? Seriously? Why do you spend so much energy hating on the thing? Don't you have better things to do? I mean... really. If you don't like it... don't buy it. And if you want a tablet with a full OS... go out any buy one! They've been available for years now. What is your problem? Or is it just that you like you spend your time troll and flame baiting for kicks? What kind of person goes onto a BMW forum for no reason other than to shoot down BMW and everyone who drives one? For instance. Or whatever kind of forum. I just don't understand the mentality.

Apple has a fan base that (nearly) always buys their new stuff, so we can't read as much in to these figures as we could with another company. Still, it's a good start.

That statement has been shown to be wrong again and again, so why keep repeating it?

Mac Cube
iPod*
iPod socks
iPod Hi-Fi
AppleTV

*When iPod was introduced in 2001, it was Mac-only. At the time, there were probably less than 20m Mac users (they'd sold 13.8m Macs over the previous four years). During the 3 quarters that the iPod was Mac-only, Apple sold 236000 units. Some fan base that was.

For the life of me... I don't understand why people who want a full OS or whatever care. Why do you care? What's it to you? Seriously? Why do you spend so much energy hating on the thing? Don't you have better things to do? I mean... really. If you don't like it... don't buy it. And if you want a tablet with a full OS... go out any buy one! They've been available for years now. What is your problem? Or is it just that you like you spend your time troll and flame baiting for kicks? What kind of person goes onto a BMW forum for no reason other than to shoot down BMW and everyone who drives one? For instance. Or whatever kind of forum. I just don't understand the mentality.

It's called envy and jealousy. Some of the oldest emotions on the planet.

What exactly do you mean by "introduced"? Which versions of HP slate will be shipping when? Sorry, "will be available later this year" is not an introduction.

HP is doing the Microsoft dance.

In Microsoft parlance, "introduced" means that their newest fabricated vaporware contraption will be "coming soon". Since it's "made" by MS, it's "REAL", unlike those fake products produced by "those other" companies that are actually SHIPPING, or in the iPad case, WILL ship.

Both HP's Slate and MS's Courier are firmly in the vware category.

MS built an empire using tactics like that. HP, being a me-too company, probably thinks that's "good enough", too.

Subsequent numbers still good, fan boys will buy anything their lord and master orders them too.

Ongoing strong sales, Apple is the master of marketing and mind control.

Other manufacturers begin to follow suit, including some of the general strategies that made the Apple product so stupid in the first place, mass amnesia that Apple pretty much created the segment and a great deal of smirking about how rival products have better specs or features and the Apple product is declared "tired."

Repeat.

It's really quite nauseating to read the posts of people who would "disagree" that this is exactly what happens.

Other manufacturers are so desperate for even some of the interest level that Apple garners, they had to come out before Apple and say, "We're gonna make tablets too, we have to wait and see what Apple does."

In addition, customers were able to reserve iPads to pick up at their local Apple Store. These do not appear in those numbers - and estimates say that the number is similar (another 200,000).

Then there are the business accounts which also don't appear in the above number. No one outside of Apple has any idea what that number is, but it's certainly greater than 0.

So total sales are 200,000 plus 200,000 plus some unknown number. Sounds like 'hundreds of thousands' to me.

Then we have to consider the potential buyers that don't care to order ahead of time but will gladly walk into an Apple Store, partner shop or buy online when they are available immediately. I don't think $1M units in the first month would surprising, especially with the 3G version coming only a couple weeks after the launch.

Dick Applebaum on whether the iPad is a personal computer: "BTW, I am posting this from my iPad pc while sitting on the throne... personal enough for you?"

Yeah, it's like the first 4 of the 5 stages of grief. Most of them never reach the 5th. Many of them are stuck forever in the earlier stages. Extremeskater never seems to get past denial ("There are tablets all over the place. HP Slate! HP Slate! No! Windows tablets are not dead!"), teckstud in his various guises, is stuck in anger ("Suckers! No Blu-ray no buy! Do the math! Apple sucks!"), a few move on to bargaining ("Other tablets, better than the iPad, will be out real soon now."), and we wish they would all just reach depression and go away.

The top netbook manufacturers are shipping around 2 million units per quarter and the price is around $299. If the HP Slate spec is good, it will stand out well against other netbooks.

well that's netbooks, and while i have seen plenty of those in the wild...i have yet to see a tablet pc in the wild and the one time i have it is an illustrator friend who opted for that after being tired of standing at his 24 wacom sketch monitor screen. I am in field that's merging classic art mediums into technology. I have been dying for a tablet I can literally do some serious sketching/designing/layout/painting. I know there are plenty of other illustrators and designers waiting for the same thing. While the ipad currently probably wont solve that..a serious digital sketchpad that would also run some version of Aperture, sketching and photo manipulation/graphics programs has me salivating.

I understand I am asking for niche product, but i would love to see apple put out the Ipad Pro and besides being a media consumption device it can also produce media. I am sure Jobs and his team of artist's are seeking or presumably have already discussed this idea. My speculation is that they are going to turn the ipad into a household name and then come out with a more powerful version, why else develop the first of many mobile low power processors to open the door to more efficient and powerful silicon, for all their mobile devices, iphone, touch and ipad..

And for some the better user experience could be having a full OS. Its all based on need which in most cases it appears yours is always very basic.

as it has been pointed out numerous times...a tablet running a full OS have been out for years and i have yet to see any media hype or any serious sales numbers yet that would even rival the PRE-ORDERS of the ipad...

why dont you buy one of those and be on your merry way? or do you think your unsolicited technical advice is going to sway apple to include to what they have probably have thoroughly researched?